ChromaClef

My project was created as a means to assist in the learning and understanding of reading music. The problems with learning to read standard music notation is that it involves different areas of the brain to work at the same time. Music reading activates the motor, visual, auditory areas in both hemispheres of the brain, along with the cerebellum. To deal with the problem, I have created a unique way of learning music that is designed to eliminate the dullness from standard music reading and inspire, inform, and motivate people to experience music in a completely different way. My business idea, ChromaClef is a beginner’s education program that teaches users how to read sheet music in a non-traditional way that is easy and exciting for everyone, no matter the musical background. ChromaClef combines color and music together in an aim to improve musical memory and understanding, proven by a process called synesthesia. Synesthesia is an unusual blending of senses in which the stimulation of one modality simultaneously produces sensation in a different modality. In this case, every note (or letter) is associated with a different color. This is called Grapheme-color synesthesia. Those with this form of synesthesia have enhanced visual memory for stimuli. Why? Some researchers believe it is due to a cross-wiring in the brain where a number or letter stimulates an area of your visual cortex that simultaneously responds to color stimuli. Not only does this color-to-music combination work because it enhances memory and comprehension, but it stands apart from every music-learning method because of its anomalous way of doing so. This non-traditional way of self-teaching allows users to learn on their own time and at their own pace.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1044/thumbnail.jp

The Child and the Dog

Modeling and Animation Creative Project I am presenting a Creative/ Research project of a short animation movie using the technique of computer graphics 3D animation based on the work of Nathan Greno and Bryan Howard, the top animators for the film Tangled. The main purpose of this creative project is how to take a personal idea and to transform it into an animation, with the similar animating technique of both Nathan Greno and Bryan Howard, and how I can create using the methods and captivating style that Nathan Greno and Bryan Howard use to tell a story. The goals of my project are to understand more on how to use computer graphics, how to create a character and to understand the visual effects that are necessary to make an animation look clean and interesting. The idea that came to mind was to take this certain animation style and turn it into a silent film. The main character would be a bullmastiff that helps children who have recently passed away. The children that the dog helps are considered lost. For the animation the bullmastiff finds children with no color. The dog then leads the child around to memorable places for the child to help regain his or her memory. As the child to starts to regain memory, color is added. Once the child fully remembers his or her child can pass to the other side. When that child goes away, the bullmastiff starts again with finding another colorless or lost child and starts again. The bullmastiff would take a dominate role to lead the children to regain their memories. This idea heavily depends on background music, as it would be a silent film. I want to learn more about the process of building a character in a CGI system. I would be looking up how to design a character with the style of the Disney animated film Tangled, which is CGI. The next thing that I would do would be to learn and research about some of the features to make a 3D film smooth and visually attractive. My last goal is how to do a storyboard. I would research how to communicate a simple or a complex idea from the animator narrative standpoint. The end result of this creative project will have an enormous impact in my future professional work as an animator, and to understand how to become a successful filmmaker in the animation industry.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1025/thumbnail.jp

Revising History: Exploring what Lies Below the Historical Cannon

In this project, I illustrate the interdisciplinarity of international, intercultural creative writing and history through the construction of my short story, “The Lord of Pandemonium.” I wrote it for my class in Writing Fiction, in which I developed my own writing process based on drafting, research and revision in a multidisciplinary approach. Although multidisciplinarity in storytelling offer refers to the use of multiple media resources (picture, video, audio) which complement the story, my approach explores the steps taken in order to create a story in an existing historical context, honing in from other subject areas in academia but maintaining a single dimension to storytelling in written words. My process includes research of the cultural and international context as well as the process of revision. The research I have done contributed to the composition of the reality in which the story takes place: the period of instability immediately preceding the Rwanda genocide. I went through academic articles and online research of news pieces, which offered accounts and analysis of the genocide. Together, these offered the basic structuring of the world I wrote in. I used the compiled data to construct not only a three-dimensional “map” or “scheme” of the world in which the story takes place, but also a historical context that explains why things were the way they were at a political, cultural and individual level. The second section of my process is based on revision, which prompted me to wonder how I could offer a different account of history. For revision I honed in on Diane Lefer’s essay “Breaking the ‘rules’ of story structure,” in which she argues in favor of the breaking of conventions in writing – how a story can be told in a new way. In other words, “how could I offer a different perspective to read this historical event?” Instead of weighing experiences against facts and trying to balance them out, I decided to expose facts through a narrative. Revision is about trying to get a fresh perspective on the story’s subject, so my story is about the people who do not show up in detail in history books or research. It is not factual in its character-driven plot, but every event that alters the character’s life and experiences is based on fact. Although I make use of history to bring life to the character, in my revision I honed in on individuality. How is an individual impacted by ethnic conflict, post-colonial society and which side does he take? How does that affect his perspective of the world and his personal relationships? As a person, how would this setting change the way a character sees the world? To me, that is a special kind of storytelling because I am focusing on the humanity behind history and on how people’s hands form and destroy their futures. That is what makes storytelling personal, relatable and even educational. Different perspectives, different opinions prompt learning and personal connections. My effort to try to reach for those who have not had their voices heard and trying to learn about an entirely different country is a form of creating and accepting dissent, new voices that contribute to political debate and reach people’s hearts. That public debate, which is essential for a functional democratic society, can be prompted by these revisions. I consider myself better for driving off the beaten path and deviating from our common historical knowledge. I think sharing this process can help other people learn, grow and see beyond the current, established and detached accounts of history and connect to the past in a more human wa

Unfolding case studies: Discovery of ways to stimulate students’ deeper learning

Abstract Background The Future of Nursing Report (2010), and National League for Nursing (NLN) (2011) reveal an expectation that nursing programs integrate strategies for academic progression from beginner to advanced nursing. Improving nursing curricula rely on integrating teaching and learning principles that reflect a student-centered approach supported by evidence (Ironside \u26 Hayden-Miles, 2012). An idea to facilitate students to “think like a nurse” as described by Tanner (2006), is to provide deeper learning experiences for students by transforming students’ reflections about their clinical and simulation experiences into unfolding case studies that can be used in the classroom. Purpose The purpose of this research project is to determine ways to integrate unfolding case scenarios that reflect students’ clinical and simulation experiences throughout the nursing curriculum. Methods Unfolding case studies that evolve in complexity from beginner to advanced expertise in nursing courses include an actual patient situation leveled in complexity from beginning to advanced content. The patient situations are video recorded and guiding questions are provided in class to stimulate students’ small group discussions about the patient situations. Students who attend each clinical class and view the video and participate in the discussion of the unfolding case study will be invited to participate in focus group sessions to share their perceptions of growth and learning related to the case study content. The focus group sessions will be audio recorded for approximately 60 minutes. Field notes will be recorded to add clarity and insight to communication shared by the students. This study captures a new holistic inter-professional approach to end of life care where an Advanced Care Planning team is included in one of the higher level course case study scenarios. Triangulation using test question analyses for this study is intended to validate if there will be students\u27 deeper understanding of the complexity the patient’s situation. Test questions related to content in the case studies will be taken from the comprehensive exam for each of the clinical courses. The comprehensive exam test questions reveal validity and reliability according to a test item analysis report. Results and Conclusions The unfolding case studies implementation and data collection are in process this spring semester. The focus groups will provide interaction that not only will include the students\u27 actual words, but also non-verbal communication that may enhance exchanging of perceptions. Test question results will reveal students\u27 knowledge, comprehension, application, and analysis of the content

Television’s “Leftover” Bachelors and Hegemonic Masculinity in Postsocialist China

This article looks at the renegotiation of Chinese masculinities by analyzing the gendered performances of participants of a popular TV dating show If You Are the One (Fei Cheng Wu Rao). As symptomatic media texts, the reality TV show points to the quandaries of evolving gender politics faced by singletons of China’s one-child generation within the country’s neoliberal restructuring. The textual evidence shows that male participants follow the rule of a market economic hierarchy and uphold the hegemonic ideal of versatile, successful, and upper-middle-class manhood, which hinges on the patriarchal, heteronormative model of love and marriage. Paradoxically, this disempowering ideal is reinforced by female participants in their relational reconstruction of masculinities. The article argues that the Chinese state media not only discipline masculinities but also naturalize a regressive gender mandate in alignment with neoliberal values and the state’s pursuit of capitalist economic development. Consequently, the multiple, hybridized versions of masculinities emerging in media discourse and popular parlance complicate the cultural repertoire of gender relations yet without challenging deeply entrenched structural gender inequality

The National Reorganization Process: Argentina\u27s Past in the Dictatorship Era

Andrew Hakes is a history major in his last year at IPFW. His focus in history is conflict and revolution during the Cold War, with a leaning towards Latin America. He recently studied abroad in Argentina and conducted research over the legacy of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. He is currently working on his Honors Project—an examination of the impact of the EZLN (Zapatistas) throughout the Americas. He has presented at the history conference twice before over the topics of Babi Yar and the relationship of the Cuban and US governments after the Cuban Revolution. Currently he is considering post-graduate education and looking at his options

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http://opus.ipfw.edu/hist_images2016/1056/thumbnail.jp

The Battle of Tours

Historians long viewed the 8th century Battle of Tours as a defining event in the history of Europe, and interpretation of the meaning of this battle, both at the time it was fought and well after, has been fraught with controversy. My poster illustrates the beliefs held for centuries by many Westerners of the two dichotomous groups who fought this battle. They characterized the Muslims as expansionist and malevolent and trying to gain more territory and plunder. On the other side of the conflict, historians have viewed the medieval Christians as isolationist and respectable. These beliefs embody dogmas that are still evident among some groups even today. However, this poster suggests that even though these beliefs were upheld by scholars and in popular opinion for many centuries, these ideas are most likely false. While this particular battle happened over a millennium ago, the way it was portrayed in Christian chronicles and later Western histories as a radical encroachment of Islam on Christianity has led to the widespread idea that Western Civilization would have been completely altered if the Muslim forces would have been able to breach the European might. The majority of medieval European Christians believed that Islam was certainly capable of becoming the dominant religion in Europe if this critical battle was lost. Where cathedrals and churches dotted the landscape, medieval Christians feared that mosques and minarets would take their place if the Muslims would have been able to complete their conquest. For centuries, European historians and Western observers more broadly considered the Battle of Tours to be the climax of defeating Islamic invasion into the “civilized” West. The poster provides the background, location, and contenders of the battle, but also insists that this conflict may not have been as decisive as earlier writers have assumed. Primary sources from an anonymous Arab chronicler from 732, and two Christian writers, Isidore of Beja and St. Denis reveal perspectives from both sides of the conflict, and images from medieval European artists display a Christian bias. Ideas from secondary sources describing the battle from various angles are synthesized, and the modern relevance of this battle is challenged. This poster provides the viewer a clearer image of what happened at the Battle of Tours, and also what might have happened if Charles “The Hammer” Martel lost.http://opus.ipfw.edu/stu_symp2017/1023/thumbnail.jp